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Telehealth Reduces Missed Appointments in Pediatric Patients with Tuberculosis Infection

Pediatric patients with untreated tuberculosis infection (TBI), also called latent TBI, are at risk of progression to active TB disease. The primary aim of this study was to identify factors associated with higher rates of missed appointments and failure to complete therapy for pediatric patients wi...

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Autores principales: Zhao, Angela, Butala, Nirali, Luc, Casey Morgan, Feinn, Richard, Murray, Thomas S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8877294/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35202221
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed7020026
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author Zhao, Angela
Butala, Nirali
Luc, Casey Morgan
Feinn, Richard
Murray, Thomas S.
author_facet Zhao, Angela
Butala, Nirali
Luc, Casey Morgan
Feinn, Richard
Murray, Thomas S.
author_sort Zhao, Angela
collection PubMed
description Pediatric patients with untreated tuberculosis infection (TBI), also called latent TBI, are at risk of progression to active TB disease. The primary aim of this study was to identify factors associated with higher rates of missed appointments and failure to complete therapy for pediatric patients with TBI. A secondary aim was to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of telehealth on TBI missed appointment rates. We first performed a retrospective chart review of 129 pediatric patients referred to the free Yale Pediatric Winchester Chest Tuberculosis Clinic from 2016–2019. Associations between demographic/clinical variables and missed appointments/failure to complete therapy were analyzed using univariate and bivariate chi-square tests. Language, lack of primary provider, and distance to clinic were the main contributors to missed appointments and poor treatment adherence. There was an association between the number of missed appointments and failure to complete treatment (p = 0.050). A second cohort of 29 patients was analyzed from January–December 2021 when telehealth was offered for follow-up appointments. Of these follow-up visits, 54% were conducted via telehealth, and the clinic’s missed appointment rate dropped significantly from 16.9% to 5.8% during this time frame (p = 0.037). These data demonstrate that telehealth is accepted as an alternative by patients for follow-up TBI visits.
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spelling pubmed-88772942022-02-26 Telehealth Reduces Missed Appointments in Pediatric Patients with Tuberculosis Infection Zhao, Angela Butala, Nirali Luc, Casey Morgan Feinn, Richard Murray, Thomas S. Trop Med Infect Dis Article Pediatric patients with untreated tuberculosis infection (TBI), also called latent TBI, are at risk of progression to active TB disease. The primary aim of this study was to identify factors associated with higher rates of missed appointments and failure to complete therapy for pediatric patients with TBI. A secondary aim was to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of telehealth on TBI missed appointment rates. We first performed a retrospective chart review of 129 pediatric patients referred to the free Yale Pediatric Winchester Chest Tuberculosis Clinic from 2016–2019. Associations between demographic/clinical variables and missed appointments/failure to complete therapy were analyzed using univariate and bivariate chi-square tests. Language, lack of primary provider, and distance to clinic were the main contributors to missed appointments and poor treatment adherence. There was an association between the number of missed appointments and failure to complete treatment (p = 0.050). A second cohort of 29 patients was analyzed from January–December 2021 when telehealth was offered for follow-up appointments. Of these follow-up visits, 54% were conducted via telehealth, and the clinic’s missed appointment rate dropped significantly from 16.9% to 5.8% during this time frame (p = 0.037). These data demonstrate that telehealth is accepted as an alternative by patients for follow-up TBI visits. MDPI 2022-02-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8877294/ /pubmed/35202221 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed7020026 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Zhao, Angela
Butala, Nirali
Luc, Casey Morgan
Feinn, Richard
Murray, Thomas S.
Telehealth Reduces Missed Appointments in Pediatric Patients with Tuberculosis Infection
title Telehealth Reduces Missed Appointments in Pediatric Patients with Tuberculosis Infection
title_full Telehealth Reduces Missed Appointments in Pediatric Patients with Tuberculosis Infection
title_fullStr Telehealth Reduces Missed Appointments in Pediatric Patients with Tuberculosis Infection
title_full_unstemmed Telehealth Reduces Missed Appointments in Pediatric Patients with Tuberculosis Infection
title_short Telehealth Reduces Missed Appointments in Pediatric Patients with Tuberculosis Infection
title_sort telehealth reduces missed appointments in pediatric patients with tuberculosis infection
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8877294/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35202221
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed7020026
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